Elon Musk Unveils New Version of SpaceX Starship Rocket and Wants to Launch It Into Space This Year
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk gave a presentation Thursday night about his plans for Starship, his company’s next-generation rocket aimed at sending humans to the moon and, eventually, Mars. The billionaire, who is known for his bold (and often misleading) predictions, told the audience, “At this point, I feel very confident that we will be on the right track this year.”
The shiny Starship system consists of two parts: a giant lower-stage booster known as the Super Heavy that is said to have twice the thrust of the Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo astronauts to the moon; and the actual Starship crew spacecraft sits on top of the booster. Upon launch, Super Heavy sent Starship into space before separating and returning to Earth, while Starship was designed to travel out and land on the moon’s surface (and return to Earth upon mission). service ends).
Both parts are fully reusable — something SpaceX pioneered with its flagship Falcon 9 rocket.
Elon Musk presenting from Boca Chica, Texas.
SpaceX
Musk gave a presentation from Boca Chica, Texas, at the company’s Starship test site (nicknamed Starbase), with a stacked 400-foot-tall Starship-Super Heavy system as the backdrop. Previous versions of Starship have continued mid-range flights about 6.2 miles high, and one even made a clean vertical landing last month.
Since then, SpaceX has waiting for permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to actually launch Starship into space. The FAA is expected to conclude its environmental assessment on February 28, which will either send Starship into orbit just a few weeks later or further delay future tests. “I’m optimistic we’ll get approval,” Musk said.
At worst, Musk believes that SpaceX could simply launch from Cape Canaveral, where they were approved. That would delay Starship’s first orbital flight by about six to eight months, he said.
Demonstration of the SpaceX Raptor 2 engine.
SpaceX
It’s still unclear when exactly Starship will go into orbit, but it has had several official missions on its stand. SpaceX wants to use Starship to launch a second version of its Starlink satellite. Next year, the spacecraft is expected to take Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and dozens of artists of his choice on a trip around the moon and back.
And NASA is paying SpaceX $2.9 billion to use the vehicle as a lunar lander. When the NASA astronauts returned to the moon (in 2025 at the earliest), they will come to the surface from Starship—let Jeff Bezos down.
